Favorite Schools

Favorite Teams

Convicted murderer David Renz admits to child porn charges

2013-07-17-db-Renz5.JPG

David Renz, right, with defense lawyer Kenneth Moynihan, pleads guilty in Onondaga County Court in July to the murder of Lori Bresnahan and the rape of a 10-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty this morning in federal court to receiving child pornography.
(Dick Blume | dblume@syracuse.com)

In federal court this morning, Renz pleaded guilty to six counts of receiving and possessing child pornography over the Internet.

He was in handcuffs and leg irons, wearing a beige jail uniform. His hair was cut shorter than it was in previous court appearances.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Fletcher read through a document describing the videos that FBI agents found on his computer, including some showing 7-year-old girls and one with a girl who had an obscenity written on her chest and an arrow pointing to the child's genitals.

Another video file was labeled, "12YO Girls Crying!!!," she said. One video shows a girl who appears to be 10 years old who's blindfolded, wearing no pants or underwear, with her hands tied behind her back and a rope around her neck and waist, Fletcher said.

One video shows a girl about 12 years old with an adult male. She's hogtied in bed and tries to get away before the man forces her back to bed and removes her clothes, the prosecutor said.

Renz' mother was in the courtroom for today's proceeding, which lasted about 45 minutes. She declined to speak to a reporter.

About 20 people sat in the courtroom gallery for the plea.

Renz faces between between 14 and 27 years in prison on the child porn convictions under federal sentencing guidelines, depending on a determination of whether he not only received but also distributed the images, Fletcher said.

U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue scheduled sentencing for Feb. 10.

Today's plea will likely have no impact on Renz, because he's already going to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in Onondaga County Court for the murder and rape. But if for some unforeseen reason the state charge is overturned, Renz would have to do his federal sentence, Fletcher said.

Renz pleaded guilty to the murder and rape to try to avoid the death penalty in federal court, his lawyers have said. The U.S. Attorney's Office notified his lawyers in May that federal prosecutors were considering indicting him on a carjacking charge as a way to pursue the death penalty.

No decision has been made on whether to recommend to Attorney General Eric Holder that he certify Renz' case as a death penalty case, prosecutors said.

The murder sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 1, but Renz has the option of withdrawing his guilty plea to murder if federal prosecutors decide to re-indict him on the carjacking charge to pursue the death penalty.

The FBI got onto Renz as a child pornographer through an investigative computer tool, Fletcher said. She would not disclose more about it. They did a "knock and talk" on June 4, 2012, going to his home and asking him questions about child porn, she said.

When the agents first questioned Renz that day, he said he only viewed adult porn on his computer and that he sometimes unintentionally came across child porn, according to an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Alix Skelton.

Renz, 29, admitted later that day that he had purposely downloaded child porn on one of his four personal computers for six years, the affidavit said. Agents seized the computers and found more than 500 video files and 3,000 image files with child porn, Skelton wrote.

Of those, 13 videos and 254 images files included images of victims who'd been identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database as "known," meaning they were fully identified and verified to be underage, Skelton wrote.

In January, a federal judge released Renz on the child porn charges in January after prosecutors agreed to the release on the condition that he wear the electronic ankle bracelet. But he slipped out of the device two months later and attacked Bresnahan and the girl.

In response to the case, the federal government also reorganized the Syracuse probation office's electronic monitoring unit, retrained its staff and brought in federal consultants from outside of Central New York to advise the office, according to the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

While on pre-trial release on the child pornography charge, Renz' probation officers ignored 46 alerts that his GPS monitoring bracelet had been tampered with, according to a report by U.S. District Judge Gary Sharpe.